Nigeria, with a population of about 150million and with numerous natural endowments, is unarguably one of the most important countries in not only Africa but the world. Presently, Nigeria has more black population than any other country in the world, and it's predicted that Nigeria's population would be somewhere around 289million by 2050.
Nigeria, like many other African countries, had suffered from colonization. It's a former colony of Britain. Before the arrival of Britain on Nigerian shores, there was no country called Nigeria but a number of warring tribes who were most of the times, in want of domination and expansion of their sovereignty, at war with one another. Upon their arrival, the British settled in Lagos and around coastal areas like Portharcourt. They were said to be there mainly for missionary activities, and with an urge to explore more opportunities for trade. They took, first Lagos, and later, the whole of the country as British colony. One British mayor called Lord Lugard was the man behind the idea of annexing Southern and Northern protectorates who were, before that time, ruled by different systems of government. Many constitutions were drafted by different British governors to see to the effective functioning of the new colony, which has, embedded within it, a wide disparity of ethnic and religious beliefs. Around 1950, Nigerians who had been trained in Britain and who had been working in the British government alongside their British counterparts, moved for Nigeria's independence. Independence was granted on Oct. 1st 1960 to Nigeria by Britain but not without friction.
After independence, democracy was entrenched as the sole means by which Nigerians could choose their leaders. The three former regions, a system inherited from Britain for easy leadership, were retained; and each region voted for candidates who would represent them in the new government. However, as the new country struggled with leadership uncertainties, the military plotted coup d'etats to overthrow civilian governments for what they described as their inability to manage a country. Military officials found themselves plotting to outdo one another in executing dirty coups. With this kind of struggle, Nigeria was plunged into a mess. Every dictator that came into rulership was trying to outdo his predecessor in accumulating much wealth, and, perhaps, corruption and mismanagement of public fund were taken to a higher level because of this trend. Calls and pressure from governments across the world made the military hand over leadership to democratic governments in 1999.
However, in stark contrast to what was expected by many Nigerians, the newly democratically elected government did not prove to be better than the former military regimes. In fact, Olusegun Obasanjo, the man who was elected president on the platform of PDP, was a former military general who had also ruled the country after his boss Murtala's death. He tried to bring back Nigeria to the path of progress but could not achieve success due to obstacles like religious uprisings and politics of division. Instead of things to go better, there were observed to have gone worse as a result of gross misconduct and huge corruption that characterized all tiers of government. Obasanjo spent his first tenure without recording much progress. But because his party has wider reach across the country, when he contested for second term, Obasanjo was again voted in as president, though with much rigging and intimidation of voters.
In stark breach of constitutional provision, Obasanjo tried to go for third term. He even went as far as trying to make some constitutional changes in order to give way for his third term ambition. People cried out at this indecent lawlessness; and, together with the aversion shown by outside governments and lack of support from both houses of Nigeria's legislators, Obasanjo's third term ambition was brought to its knee. He however succeeded in manipulating his party's decision on who would contest for it in the presidential election. The party's choice of the duo Yar'adua and Jonathan, from the north and south respectively, was followed by nationwide condemnation, and speculation from the North that Obasanjo chose a sick man so that he would die and hand over to a southerner and a christian to continue with leadership. Before election, a false rumour of the death of Yar'adua spread across Nigeria. Obasanjo humorously called Yar'adua asking him to prove that it was nothing but a baseless rumour.
In the election that was conducted in 2003 by Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, PDP was announced the winner of that election. However, the election was characterised by massive rigging, stealing of ballot boxes and threats of lives of the electorate. Many observers condemned the PDP for being at the forefront of the malpractices.
Nevertheless, Yar'adua and Jonathan were declared winners. As was predicted by many people before Yar'adua and Jonathan took the mantle of leadership, Yar'dua fell gravely sick and later died. His wife and a cabal that formed around him put the country through a period of uncertainty. They flew the man to a hospital in Saudi Arabia, and later, sneaked him in to Nigeria in the middle of darkness and prevented anyone from seeing the man. Even Jonathan, then vice president, was not allowed to see the man and also not handled over the mantle of leadership. People went out en masse to protest the illegal creation of hiatus in Nigeria's leadership and breaching of the country's constitution. Eventually, Jonathan was assigned acting president; and later, with the death of sudden death of Yar'adua, president.
After taking on the mantle of leadership, Jonathan made some changes to some ministries. He removed people he perceived would not help in running the country smoothly and inserted others he thought would be loyal to him. This act was followed with outrage from some quarters who saw Jonathan as trying to have a stranglehold on all tiers of government.
So far, Jonathan has been at the helm of government for about six months. He is also contesting for PDP's ticket for the forthcoming 2011 election. However, his bid is trailed with much controversy arising from a gentlemanly agreement in which power rotates among the political zones. Also, it appears a rift is being created with the NPLF's endorsement of Atiku. A hot political campaign is now going on in the PDP with both Atiku and Jonathan trying to blackmail each other; and as a result, kill their appeal with the masses.
